


The Essens of the Earth

by Jonathan_D_Allard



Category: The Half Bad Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: Ghosts, Love, M/M, Magic, Romance, Volience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-11-01 23:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20542844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonathan_D_Allard/pseuds/Jonathan_D_Allard
Summary: Gabriel is dead but Nathan keeps seeing him and forgetting he is dead. Its a story about accepting and letting go and how not do neather of those things.





	1. Chapter 1

The day is beautiful, the sun is shining, the birds are singing in the clean air. I am laying in the grass not really seeing anything else than Gabriel.  
How the sun kisses his skin, how the soft wind caresses his hair and how his brown eyes sparkes with gold flicks.

So full of life.

We lay beside one another close enough to touch, close enough to smell.  
Not one of us saying a word, we just stay here looking at each other, looking deep in each others eyes. Seeing each other for the for the first time, in a long time.  
Gabriel looks like he always do, beautiful and perfect with that smile. It does things to my heart. 

“You've been away a long time. Were you lost?” Gabriel asks. I had been away, drifted around in my animal form for far to long before returning home to find Gabriel lying looking at the clouds drifting slowly over the sky.  
“I was wounded, not lost.” I answer, lying. I had been lost. However he didn’t need to know that. Not now anyway, I would talk about that later. There is no need to ruin the moment with worrying him.  
It has been many moons since we have been this tranquil in a single moment. The trick is to stay in the present, get lost in the detail of him and enjoy the time we have together. 

“I like me better when I'm with you Gabriel.” I say, what I really mean is that I have missed him and don't want to be without him. I look at the ring on his finger, my father's ring, the ring with the promise of forever. 

Gabriel leans closer and closer, very slowly and gently, he kisses me, on the lips, with infinite tenderness, so that our skin is barely touching. And the spell is broken, the reality hits me in the face. I don't feel his hand on my neck or his lip on mine more than that of a memory, because Gabriel isn’t really here.

As a cloud hides the sun, he disappears.

————{~$~}—————-

We are running, laughing. Being happy in the present.

I chase him and even though I am faster than him, he escapes me. It is like he jumps from sun patch to sun patch, that fall down between the treetops.  
I barely hear his footsteps on the forest floor.  
I think he have improved much since the war. I doubt I would hear him if he sneaked up on me now.  
I look at him as he is running, he is smiling. He looks healthy, so full of life. The only thing I hear clearly is the leaves rustling, the birds chipping and my breath.

I feel the the forest floor as my feet accelerate and my heartbeat pounds faster.  
The trick is to stay in the present, get lost in the detail of him and enjoy the time we have together. 

I don't think of the war, I gotta stay positive. Got to stay in the presents or else I’m gonna lose him in the forest. I run faster to catch up to him. I will chase him, follow him forever if that’s what it's gonna take.

“Are you coming?” He yells over his shoulder. “You will have to keep up or you are gonna get lost.”

He is right, I have to keep up or I’m lost without him. 

“For fucks sake, can you wait for me!” I yell back as I speed up again. I feel like I’m flying.

“Then you wouldn’t have to chase me!” He teases, as he keeps running just out of arm's reach. I tackle him and end up on the brown needles and leaves that is the forest floor. He must have gotten out of my grib as we fell, I look around for him, laughing, but find he is nowhere and the shaking of laughter becomes crying. I sub like a little child, deep in the forest alone, because he is not there. Then I remember that he is dead, and he never was here to begin with.

I want to disappear, to run, to become the animal. To be numb, to forget him just for a moment and yet I want to be human; I want to be thinking of him because then I feel he is alive somewhere, if only in my head.

————{~$~}—————-

I’m picking blueberries, it is fall, the wind has picked up, most days it rains, but today is a sunny day. Even if the sun don't warm me to the bone I still feel it on my skin.

“You look good.” He says from the apple tree, he is sitting in. “Who thought Britain's most dangerous Black witch would do something as ordinary as pick blueberries?” He have become very good at sneaking up on me. I didn’t hear him at all this time. 

“Fuck off.” I tell him, but my voice is soft and full of affection. I love him, I really do, but the words don't leave my lips. 

He smiles and his eyes hold so much joy. Just like that, I know he knows. I thought a blueberry at him, I miss, that is od. My aim is good and we are at a short range, it must have missed him by millimeters. 

“Are you gonna join Celia tonight for dinner?” He asks. I don't understand and ask him. “Why do you think that?”

“You are picking blueberries and last time I checked, you don't eat them.”

“Oh” I say. “They are for you, I know how much you love them.” I smile at him and he returns it with a look mixed of sorrow and pity. Suddenly I am angry.

“Maybe I should join her for dinner, then you can pick your own damn berries.” I leave him there in the apple tree. I don't look back, I hope he follows me, but know he won't. The thought of leaving him makes me want to hurl, but looking back and seeing he isn’t there is worse than the anger and the guilty feeling in my stomach. I carefully creadel the berries as I find my way to the small capin.

“Nathan!?” Celia jumps when she sees me.

“Here.” I offer her the berries, without looking her in the eyes. I didn’t want to see pity in her eyes too.

She has been trying to cleave firewood, she always has been a strong woman. But I see that she is struggling with the big amount she needs to get through before the Winter.

She takes the berries I offer and I pick up the acks, starting to cleave the wood.

When we eat, she asks, why I brought her the berries, she like Gabriel know that I don’t eat them. Not after mistakenly eating a Corn Lily's and becoming violently ill on one of my alone trips to Wales, as a child.

“Gabriel didn’t want them after I had picked them for him, so I thought you might like them.” I forgot not to look at her as I say it.

Which means I see it in her eyes.

The pity.

She doesn't say anything about the subject, she just look down at the berries and thank me before eating them.


	2. Chapter 2

Arran came late in the fall, it is winter now. We didn’t talk much. He mostly told me about my son Edge and Adele.  
Arran and Adele are getting married, I will be invited to their wedding.

I doubt I will go.

He said I had to decide the next time he would come, because Adele postponed the wedding 9 months, she refused to get married with a big stomach. Arran said I would become an uncle. 

I was happy for him, am happy for him. But I don't want to go to the wedding, don't want to ruin their family.

I don't want to meet my son. All I have done in my life is kill and hate, and hate and kill.  
And I hate that. I hate I could never be White. Always a half-code, always an outsider.

I don't want to fill my sons life with hate and violence. I want him to be happy. Not to know all the terrible things I have done. I don't want him around a heart eating psychopath.

And most of all, I don't want to leave Gabriel. He said, I should go and he would be here when I got back. He said he would wait here until I came home again. 

I don't want to leave him, I can't leave him. Im scared if I do I will never find him again. 

It is winter now and it is cold even in the denn. Most days I live as my animal self, hunting, eating and sleeping. Gabriel hasn't been here mutch this winter.

He never is.

But he is here now, laying on my sheepskins with a fire warming him. He looks so soft and perfectly beautiful sleeping their.  
I sit on the other side of the denn and looks at him. I know if I move closer I will touch him. I see the fire dancing in his dark hair. I see him breathing in his sleep, which is good because I don't hear it.

He is always so silent these days.

When he sleeping like this he looks peaceful, full of bliss and indecence.  
The trick is to stay in the present, get lost in the detail of him and enjoy the time we have together.  
I want to touch him but I don't. I keep still. Just watching and drawing him.

-————{~$~}—————-

Winter is over and spring has come. The winter has been hash and spring has been wet, it is wet. But I don't mind, not when sitting underneath a tree with Gabriel watching the grey sunrise.

I can't help thinking back to the war, when we camped out, the two of us alone. I can't help but think of how I treated him back then.

Nathan, you got to stay positive, be careful with your thoughts.

So instead I think of our time in Geneva and how much I enjoyed it. That makes my mind jump to the bunker, kissing and touching.

Focus Nathan you have to stay in the present. 

But it doesn't take my trederus mind more than a moment to jump right back to the kissing, the nice stuff and the love making. 

“What are you thinking about?” Gabriel asks. Shit I must have drifted of in my thoughts.

“You” I say and look back into his eyes. The gold turning faster now. It must have shown on my face, what I was thinking. Because his eyes darkened, they have a hunger to them.

The last time he had looked that way at me, we had been staying with Ledger. We had had a break and used it to become closer, to map out each others bodys perfectly. 

I leaned back with closed eyes and raveled in the memory.  
Gabriel has always been perfectly beautiful. But in moments like this I can't stand to look at him. He is too perfect, to hard to look at without touching. So instead I ask something I had always wondered, but never dared to ask.

“Was there ever someone before me, that you loved, I mean.”

“I haven't loved you.” My breath leaves my lungs and I feel sick. He wouldn’t be so cruel to lie to me. “I love you, Nathan. In present tense, not past. There is a differences.” He winks at me and I realize I started looking at him again. I truly can't keep my eyes of him. 

“Fuck off” I say and pushes him. But when I touch him, he is gone and the only thing my fingers have touched is a memory.

I look back at the sunrise and pretend he's still there when I say the hardest words there has ever crossed my lips.

“I love you too Gabriel. I love you, too” and I smile because, he loves me. The rain must have gotten in my eyes, because they are as wet as the rest of me.

I think about the time with Ledger again and it makes my inside burn. I try to distract myself by thinking of what Ledger had said about the earth will help and what it means.

How to feel the essence, but all I feel is hands on my body and lips ghosting my spine. I revel in it, just a moment longer before I’m changing into my animal skin and is running. 

-————{~$~}—————-

It is raining again. I am always wet, we are having a wet summer this year. But that doesn't stop Gabriel in dropping his clothes and going for a swim.  
I jump in with him we splash around like children.  
I feel real joy for the first time in a long time. I feel 20 and not 80 like I did three years ago.  
I has already been two years since I build my home with Gabriel in the denn.  
I hunt for meat, fish and forrige for greens. I even trade some game for food with Celia.

“You look good, Nathan” she says when I go and eat with her that night.

It have become a tradition that every new moon, we go to keep Celia company. When I say we, I mean Gabriel and me, even if Celia doesn't see him she doesn't look at me with pity.  
Not anymore.  
I love her for it. Arran always do, always beating around the bush trying avoid the subject or try to make me see sense, that Gabriel isn’t here even when he is.

Arran must think I have gone mad and maybe I have. Maybe I have always been half mad. 

Celia accepts what I have become. She listens to what I tell and even asks about how Gabriel is doing. So I tell her everything about him. I feel my sanity being broken apart peace by peace.  
I feel like when Celia had me shackled to the cage, breaking me down to mold me into something else. 

-————{~$~}—————-

The more Gabriel is here the longer he stays. He is the only thing that keep me human these days. 

When Arran and Adele came to visit with their kid. I just growled at them to stay away. I didn’t go to the wedding. I didn't see the reason to go and ruin Arran’s big day.

I love Arran, more than he knows. And that is why I stay away, he is better of without me. It is my fault he has no family. No mother, no farther and no sisters. It is my fault has no one beside Adele and his own kid.

I try not to think about Arren to much. It helps that Gabriel comes more often. I would be lost without him.

We talk about everything and nothing. The past, the present and the future. I like it the best when we talk of the future. Gabriel talks about how much me misses reading.

I don't understand who could want more than being free. The kind of free we are.  
Even if I don't understand his need for books I ask him.

“Which one do you miss the most?” It is a safe topic to talk about.

“The once with a happy ending.” He grins. “No just any book. I miss the feel of the pages, the weight in my hands. Escaping the world just for a short while.”

That I get.


	3. Chapter 3

I am howling at the winter moon. Even the animal misses Gabriel when he is not here.

And I hate that.

Because this means that I no longer can escape my thoughts. I am back in the cage. I never left, I realice.

I never left the damn cage. I might be running free, but I'm not really free. I have been banished to a small corner of Wales.

I have banished myself.

I miss my cage, the one Celia kept me in. Because that one I knew were started, where it ended and where the bars was. 

This cage is different. It keep me from straying to far even when my jayler isn't here.

Gabriel is my jayler, he keeps me here. The prison, the prison is love. The cage bars are not made of ion but of kisses and soft touches. Of sweet words and longing eyes.

Suddenly I see my jayler and I can't get enough of my cage. 

-————{~$~}—————-

“Nesbitt be careful with Nathan.” I have come to Celia’s with meat. It stop in my tracks.

Nesbitt is here. I panic and hunker down between the green leaves of the underbrush and listen.

“What do you mean? I know not to antagonize him too much. But it has been years since I heard from him.”

“He is fragile.” Celia says. I don't agree. I haven't been stronger or fitter since ever. Have enough food and time to run.

I hear Nesbitt snort. “That kid has never been fragile, I don't believe you.”

“I think his mind is broken. He didn't take take it well after the war.”

“Surly Loverboy, helps him cope.” He sounds like he don't know what is going on. He sounds worried about me.

“Nobody told you?!” Celia sounds angry and surprised. I never think, I heard her surprised before now.

“Told me what?” Nesbitt is confused.

I hear her slump down on one of her chairs and take deep breath before starting to speak.

“Four years ago. At the takedown of the counsel something happened to Gabriel.”

“What does it have to do with Nathan, Gabriel must have forgiven him by now. I am sure.” He says in his mistivius way. 

“Nesbitt, Gabriel died.” 

“What!?” It is silent for a moment before he starts yelling. “Why didn't I get a damn invitation to my friends funeral?”

“There were none.”

“Are you telling me you left him like we did Van?!” He is screaming now.

“No” Celia as calm as ever. “We were busy getting the new counsel together and stopping the hunters. Making it safe. Gabriel had no one, no family left. No one besides Nathan. I let him get take the body, I let Nathan bury him alone.” And she is crying. I don't understand, Celia never cries.

“I don't know, Nesbitt. But I think it broke his mind.”

“What do you mean?” His australian voice have gone quiet again. 

“He still sees him. I thought it was denile at first, but it has been years and he still talks about how they go swim in the river or pick berries. Ether he has gone mad or he really can see him. So be careful, he is more wild then I have ever seen him before.” 

I go invisible and go, I leave the game on the hook by the door and leave. I have no desire to see Nesbitt’s eyes filled with pity. I have no desire to hear what they say about me.

I go back home. Home to my denn, home to Gabriel. 

-————{~$~}—————-

I still have bad days. Days where I can do nothing else but hate. I hate everything. I hate the grass, the trees, the sky and the river. I hate Gabriel.

And as I see him I yell it to him.  
“I hate you!” I scream at him, I curse him to hell and back. I'm so angry with him. Why did he have to fight the last battle of the war.

“I hate you for dying!” I scream at him

“I love you for living” he says back soft and tender.

“I hate you for leaving me!” And I do, I really do. The hate burns in me.

“I love you for coming to me.” he says al lovingly. 

“I hate you for making me love you in the first place.” To that he doesn't answer, only takes a step back and his tenderness becomes sadness.

And I know I have hurt him, I don't wanna hurt him. Never want to hurt him. But I do.

Most of all I hate myself. I hate myself for hurting him, for failing to protect him.  
I hate myself that I couldn't stop time long enough, that I couldn't take Arran with me.

“I hate myself for killing you.” I whisper the words. Afraid that if Gabriel's hears them he will agree and hate me too.  
I look down to where his bones lies in the earth.

“I could never hate you Nathan. No matter how much you hurt me or push me away.”


	4. Chapter 4

A whole year goes by before I let any of them se me again. I growl if if they come to close. Celia learnt it the hard way, last summer.

Her end Nesbitt had come, and come to close, we had seen them as a threat to our denn. 

We hurt her, hurt her bad. Like we had always wanted to. She is blind on one eye now and she has a limp that will never go away. There were so much blood. I nearly forgotten how much blood there is in a human body. And how it tastes.

I had forgotten how how easy it is to snap and how much it hurts to get short. Nesbitt did what he said he would do, if he ever met my animal, he shot me in the leg.

He stayed with Celia until she was healed. He moved into the capin and never left. 

I am not really sorry, but I feel some sort of regret. She did beat me up every day as a kid for years. She kept me in a cage. She was right, she did break me, but not my sanity.

She broke my humanite

She might not have given me the gift of violence. But she harnessed it. She didn’t make me a killer. She trained me, tortured me, she made my anger grow. She taught me to supress my feelings. They tried to make me a machine, but I am an animal. She grew to trust the puppy I was back then.

You can’t trust a wild animal. Or maybe you can, but just not this animal.

Wild is an interesting word. We imagine wild to be untamed and out of control but, of course, nature isn't like that; nature is controlled, ordered, extremely disciplined by all its elements.

I’m not totally wild, only half and that is what makes me the most dangerous, trusting this half animal, that was her biggest mistake.

It nearly took her life. Trust nearly killed her.

I didn’t trust myself not to finish what I had started. So I stayed away, it took a year in isolation for me to go back to the denn. To go home to Gabriel.

“You've been away a long time. Were you lost?” Gabriel asked. Looking up from the drawing I made a few winters back. He is smiling, he looks happy to see me.  
“Wounded, not lost.” I say as I sit down beside him.

“Don't leave me again.” He says 

“I won’t.” I mean it when I say it, but know I probably can't keep my word.

“Good.” I feel his arm around me. I look and he is still there.

He is still here.

I grin like a loon. I grab him him close, afraid to let go.

“Why do you keep disappearing?” I ask still holding him to tight.

“Just because you can’t see the moon that doesn't mean it isn’t there. I never leave, Nathan.” He pulled out of my death grip. I keep touching him to make sure he stays. He puts his forehead to mine and look into my eyes.

“I never leave you, it is you that disappear. You stop seeing me. And it kills me to see you break apart every time.”

“Then why can touch you now?!”

“Look at the moon.” He says without taking his eyes of me. I look out of the leaves of the denn. It is red as blood.

“A blood moon, what does that mean?”

“Don't know.”

“How come I couldn't touch you on blood moons before?”

“Did you try?”

“No I guess not.” I look back at him and I kiss him again. Soft, his lips are so much softer then I remember. I might have forgotten how they feel. How they taste. I feel him igniting the fire in my blood. I burn in agony, I burn for him.

“Lay with me?” I ask him.

“Always”

We undress each other slowly. I feel tens. I feel nervous. And for some reason, I feel sad.

The trick is to stay in the present, get lost in the detail of him and enjoy the time we have together. 

I must stay in the present. However it isn’t as hard as it use to be. 

Not when he touches me or shower my body with kisses.

After we lie naked twisted together I hear his heartbeat slowing. When he sleeps I wet his chest with tears.

I wake and he is gone. I stick my nose into the sheepskins where he were laid last night. I bares no sent of him. 

I might have been convinced it was a dream if not for the fact I could still feel his weight on me, in me.

I leave my denn stil stark naked with my clothes in hand, I go the the river to wash. 

I wash my clothes first. I concentrate on the task at hand. When they are washed and hanged I go back to the water and wash myself.

It surprises me how sore I am. I look at my reflection one last time before I get up.

I look older, my eyes are the same, but my hair is longer, to long.  
And my beard, witch in reality isn’t really beard but more like long individual strands on my face. I look horrid.

I need a shave and a haircut.

I hear the click of a gun. The safety being released.

I turn and see Nesbitt standing there, the gun pointing at me.

“Are you gonna shoot me?” I ask

“It depends mate, are you gonna eat me?” He sounds cold.

I sign “No.” 

“Good.” He is still pointing the gun at me as I get up. He stiffens, I look up at him and see his eyes travel my body, my scars.  
I spread my arms and turn for him to get a full look at my body. Before I let my arms fall and turns to him I ask if I am allowed to take my clothes back on.

The sound of my voice startles him. He look back into my eyes, before speaking.

“Hell kid, you look like shit. Did you have a fight with a wild animal?!” I frown, that was far from what I had expected to come out of his mouth.

I look down at my body and it's true i have bruises and bitemarks all over.

“For fucks sake” I swear before I march to my still damp cloths. I feel the heat in my cheeks. Nesbitt laughs, it makes me smile.

He puts his gun away and my breaths comes just a little easier. 

“Come on kid join us for breakfast.” For some reason I want to join so I follow him back to Celia's cabin.

“See what wanted to be found, this morning.”

Celia smiles at me, there is no hard feeling in her. That makes me feel bad, she should feel scared, at least disappointed or angry. I don't understand, she rises and comes over, she checks my eyes for something before she throws her arms around me and hold me tight. I think it is the first time Celia hugs me.   
I hug her back, she might have been nasty. But she gave me the tools to survive.  
I think that is what makes parents. She is the closest thing I have to a patent left.

Im sorry. I think the words, but don't say them.

“You look like shit.” She says as she pulls away. She frowns before turning my neck to study it with her good eye. “This is a human bite.”

“What?!” Nesbitt scrambles up choked. It took him a second to come up with a comeback.

“Well he is covered in them all over so… did you have someone visit you last night.” 

I don't answer. Celia looks surprised at Nesbitt.

“You look close at all naked people in the forest?” And that had the Australian red in the face.

“Who wants coffee?”

I haven’t had a cup of coffee since the war. 

“I'll take one” I say absent minded, because there in front of the kooking fire sits Gabriel, smiling at me just like before. 

“She is right you know, you do look like shit.” He says in his french accent 

“Hey Celia du you guys have a razer? And maybe scissors.”


	5. Chapter 5

This fall, Arran didn’t take Adele when he came. Following him up the ridge came Annalise with a child and a stranger. I guess the child must be my son, Edge.  
We watch them from beneath the apple tree Gabriel sits in. We like him, we like his companionship.  
The boy runs around playing, chasing leaves. We already like him. We see kindness in him.  
We stay where we are crouched as they pass.  
They don't see me, I can't help but think how stupid they are. If they this ignorant a few years back they wound be dead. 

I follow them in my animal form to Celia's cabin. I say Celia, but the cabin belongs just as much to Nesbitt now.

They do the polite presentations, then small talk before they sit for lunch. They sit outside at the porch. They look like they enjoy the company. I dont move. I don't want to interrupt.

“So Celia, if you don't mind me asking, what did that to you?” The stranger, Ben says with a thick American accent.

“I never did learn what happened.” Arran spoke. Celia didn’t tell anyone what happened? Because then you would have been hunted down and tried in court. The voice in the back of my mind says. She was protecting me, I feel my chest sting.

“Well I had a run in with a wild animal. He was a bit ferrell, it was my own fault for getting to close.” She says it with confidence like she used to when stating facts back when she had me in the cage. They all look satisfied with the answer, all but Annalise. She looks unnerved and ready to go grab the boy from where he sits drawing. Already finished his meal.

“How is Nathan.” She asks, still her eyes on the boy.

“Better than in a long time. He came back this summer after we hadn’t seen him for a year.”

Arran looks at her, slowly his eyes widen and I see him realize what or rather who did the damage to Celia.

“Nathan did that?!” He asks. The tabel goes silent.

“Yes and frankly I am surprised it wasn’t worse. Arran your brother can be rather forgiving.” Arran looks frozen.

“That doesn't sound the Nathan I know.” Annalise buds ind.

“If he weren't, you’d be 6 feet under now girl.” Nesbitt says. “The only thing that kept him going in the last of the war was finding you and killing you. As I recall he couldn’t decide whether he would do it quick or slow. But you still look pretty as a daisy.”

Annalise freezes. She looks to be in chock.

I don't want to hear more, so I sneak of.

“That doesn't sound right” Ben says. “How can you want to kill the one you love.” He spits out over the porch.

That is the last I hear before I run, because he is right. How can you want to kill the ones you love. Simple, because you didn’t truly love them. Because you are incapable of love. I thought I loved her and yet I wanted to kill her.  
That scared me and still do, I remember hungering for her body, her touch as well as her blood in my mouth. Eyes dead looking into mine.  
I remember it clearly, but don't feel the need to anymore. Would it become the same with Gabriel, would I have ended killing him too?

I am never gonna trust her again, love her or even like her, but still, I don't hate her, not anymore. 

I don't run far, just to the river. I lay there looking at the sky thinking back on the things I normally keep far from. I doesn’t take long before I hear small and fast feet. We sit up and in between the trees we see the child. He looks happy. 

He wavs at me and run towards us.

“Hallo Mr.” He says and I'm confused, because I am still in my animal form.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” Gabriel is here. I take my eyes of the child to look at him. The sun kisses him everywhere, his hair, his face, his skin. It even catches the gold ring on his finger.  
And I know, I just know I could never kill him. That must be what real love is, not being able to kill a person.

“Can I pet your dog?” The boy evades the question with another question. Smart little shit. Then I remember that Gabriel isn’t really here, so how can the boy see him?! It is a mystery. I don't even know how I can keep seeing him.

“Only if you tell me what you are doing out here all alone.”

“Okay” he sits beside me and dig himself into my fur. His body is warm and the small hands puts pressure on my skin. He is real, I now know the difference between real and whatever Gabriel is.  
It has been so long that someone stroked me this indecently, so long since they hugged me without fear, pity or sadness.  
I don't think I have ever been hugged like this before.

“Mommy and Ben are fighting with uncle Arren. I don't like it when they fight.” He goes from happy to sad and from sad to supping in my fur. 

“What do they fight about?”

“About me meeting my dad.”

“Oh, why dont they want you to meet you father?”

“Ben thinks he is sick, he says that they should just put him down like the animal he is, for he what did to that lady.”

“What does mommy and Arran say?”

“Arran says that Ben shouldn’t speak about things he knows nothing about. And mommy says that maybe we should wait a couple of years to we go back an wisit granny and gramps again.”

“What do you think Edge?”

“I don't know my father. That is why I am here. I wanted to meet him. But I can't find him.” It takes only a second for the boy to look up at Gabriel with big eyes. “Are you my father?!” I can't help laughing or whatever canines do when they are amused. 

“No Edge, but I know your father. He gave me this”. And I see him hold op his hand with the ring.

“Oh, who are you then?”

“My name is Gabriel.”

“Are you married to my father?”

He looks at me as he answers “Yes”

“Okay. What is your dog's name?” children's minds are weird, jumping and accepting. 

“Nathan”

“Why doesn't he wear a collar so people can bring him back if he gets lost?” 

I stiffen, I don't want a collar. I am not a dog and I am not a pet to be put on a leash. 

Gabriel smiles at me while he says “He never strays far, are never lost and he always finds me.”

“Oh okay thats sounds nice.” He yarns. It doesn't take long for the boy to fall asleep on me.   
What should I do? I Lie down so he liles on top of me. It doesn't take me long to fall asleep in the warm sun with Gabriel by my side and my son on my back. 

I don't sleep for long, I feel naggered. More tired end relaxed than I have for a long time. I feel the boy, my son, still laying on top of me and I feel something entirely new. Like something I lost has returned. I feel compleat here in the monument, with the weight of my son on my back and the man I love by my side. Then I’m sad because this will never be, this can never be. The boy has to go, he needs to get back, they surely must be looking for him by now. 

“Edge are you awake?” Gabriel must be thinking the same.  
He makes a sound indicating that he heard but is not quite awake. I turn and look at him. He is beautiful and perfect, so unguarded, so innocent. I am thankful to Annalise for being his mother, for loving my son, for him and for her pulling him out of my shadow. I am thankful to her for finding a man that wants to protect the boy. I might not like Ben but I can't help respect the man for what he would do to protect my son.

“Edge you have to wake up.” 

The boy stures a little and then seems to go back to sleep. I kiss his face. That makes him wake with a grone.

“Mummy?”

“No, it just Nathan and Gabriel. Edge you have to wake so you can go back to your mother. You have been gone for some time. I'm sure she misses you.”

“But Gabriel! I want to meet my father. I'm gonna stay with you until he gets back.”

All I see is myself in him. I kiss him again until he laughs.

“What about I stay here and Nathan follows you back. Then I can tell you father you asked for him. Is that okay?”

“I guess” he shrugs. He looks sad, but he is better off without me in his life. I don't doubt I will love him with all my heart, but his love for me might get him in harm's way. I don't want him getting hurt, put in a cage or hated just because of who I am and my father was. 

I walk him back to the capin. But before we reach it I hear voices calling for him. He doesn't run of yet, stays by my site a moment longer. I feel his small hand grabbing at my fur. He is real. I can't seem to fathom that. I know when he goes he will be taken a piece of my heart with him.

“Edge, guys I found him!” Nesbitt calls. I don't take long before the others to show up with worried and panicked faces.

“I see you met Nathan?” Nesbitts grins.

“Yes” he pets my head. Nesbitt laughs it doesn't take long for Celia to join in. Arran just looks amused. But Nesbitt is falling over laughing at me.  
“Mummy I want a dog like Nathan! He is so soft and nice. And he doesn't run far. See he has no collar.” He tells all the grownups. I smell the fear in Annalise and Ben. They want to snatch the boy away, but are to scared of me to get any closer.

“Gabriel said, Nathan would find him without getting lost. I want friend like that.” He kisses my nose and I kiss him back in the silence, before taking a step back.  
I look around on the faces, all in total and utter chok.   
“Did Edge just say what I think?!” Arran whisper yells to Celia.  
“He saw Gabriel?!” Nesbitts jaw is on the forest floor his eyes ready to pop out. 

“Bye Nathan!” Edge says as I leave him with his mother.

I run back where I left Gabriel. He is still there. Sitting in the same spot I left him. I don't sit with him. I become human again. It's hard to tell which form I’m in, sometimes I have to look at myself to remember. Because it has become so natural to shift that the animal is always there. I feel him just beneath the skin. We have become so close that I don't even think of him as a different individual, most times. He is a part of me just as much as I am a part of him. 

“Come on. Be a good boy and sit.” Gabriel teases. But something about it makes me tingen in all the wrong places. Just the indication of me being a pet makes my inside turn in the bad way.

“No” I say. “What do you want me to do next, roll over?” My words are harsh. 

“With the way you look, half dirty, hair like that and with that stuppel, totally naked. Definitely.” The ways he says it makes me speechless. I know he wants me and he loves me, but saying it out in the open like this, that he wants to fuck me in the grass by the river. It chokes me. 

I see the hunger in his eyes.

“Nathan. Do you have any idea how hot a dad you are?

“No, but I'm beginning to get an idea. Are you gonna follow me if I go to my sheep skins?”

“You know I will go wherever you are.”  
And we go. We don't touch one another, we talk. I am only gonna say one thing, Gabriel has so dirty a mouth it makes me turn red just thinking of what he said.

It is evening when I hear footsteps outside my denn. It isn’t fast and silent or have a limp. So its not Nesbitt or Celia. Arran knows to stay away from my home. They are to heavy to be Annalise. I pull a knife, Gabriels knife, as I leave the denn.

“You have no right to be here.” I say. Ben turns with a start, indicating he didn’t hear me. He is fast to look away again. I look down. That's why, I’m half naked. I don't notice much these days.

“What do you want?” I say.

“Are you Gabriel?”

“No, you asefuck. Get to the point or fuck off” I spit with venom. Hand still on the knife. The one Gabriel got me, I don't use the fairborn anymore. It wants to kill and if I use it I think I might become to tempted to listen and start killing people again.

“Then who…”

“Nathan Edge.” My birth name might be Bryn, but after I lived with my father I never thought of myself as Nathan Bryn, the half code that wanted to be good, to be white. I became Nathan Edge, a Black witch that was hunted for being the son of Marcus Edge. I couldn’t keep the name of the man that got killed the same night I was conceived.  
I never told anyone that I started using my father's name, nobody asked. They knew who I was just from looking at my face. 

“I’ll ask once more before I gut you and eat your heart.” I say it just to see the look on his face.

“You look younger than I expected.”

I step forward all theadening. Ben steps back in pure instinct.

“Why the Fuck are you here! Last change.” 

“I just wanted to see the one everyone is talking about.” I laugh. I'm not just a pet today, but a zoo animal too. 

“Fuck off!”

“Why are you so hostile?”

“Lets see how friendly you are when you have been tortured and hunted for years.” I thought the knife. I barely Nick his arm.  
“Go before your gonna end up like Celia.” Something in him change. He goes from scared to defeindt. 

“You sick bastard, doing that to an older woman.” We recognize his hostility, he is in our territory and before I know it I jump him and punch him in the head.

“That woman kept me in a cage for nearly three years.” Punch

“she beat me up” punch’

“pushed me around” punch

“Trained me to kill” punch

“burned me with acid” punch, I heard something crack. My hand broke.

“She made me beg for mercy.” Punch

“She broke me on orders” punch

“She broke me because your wife's uncle told her to.” Punch.

“I was 14, i was a kid” punch

“who is the sick one now” I get of him and heal my hand.

I feel good, it has been to long since I got to punch something alive. I think I needed that.  
I doesn't move, he is not dead I know that because I hear his heartbeat.   
I don't want him here I sling him over my shoulder. And match angrily at the capin.

When I through him on the ground Annalise comes running yelling at me. Accusing me of killing him.

“If he were dead why would I return him?”

“What did you do to him then!?”

“What does it look like? I punched him.”

“What do you expect Annalise, the boy did go poke at a sleeping bear. No wonder he got knocked out.” Nesbitt says. 

“Why do you always have to be so savage?!”

“Me?! I'm not a savage. I'm wild, there is a difference.” I spit at her.   
“Take you husband and kid and go. You don't belong in the wild, you never did. Too ignorant to see what is going on before your eyes.” I roar in her face.

“Mommy?” I hear the little voice. I look at him and first know I see he looks so much more like her than he dos me. He might want to know who I am, but he has always been accepted and wanted. Never hungered for love, starved for a simple touch. He doesn't even live in the UK were everyone would know him for his looks. Hate him for his father's sins.  
His eyes are blue with silver in them. He is white and will always be white even if his blood says he is a half code.  
He will never know me. 

I disappear in the trees, I hope he hates me. It will make it easier for him. For him to be white. I feel sad, cheated and angry. I run the outer cirkel of my territory to get lost in the present.


	6. Chapter 6

I hear them coming. But I keep sitting at the firepit where Nesbitt smokes the fish I have brought him and Celia. I take a firmer grip on the knife I have been widdeling with.

“Hunters on official counsel business, here to arrest Nathan Brynn on a sevilian attack.” They call out from a good distance. They must know what I am capable of. All of Britten's witches knows.  
As they come closer I see a familiar face among the 10 women. It's been a while since I have seen her. The the last I saw Greatorex was just after the war, when she took over leading the hunters. She looks older, time must fly by outside my part of Wales. It has been five or is it six years? I don't know, but the years haven’t been kind on her.

They come closer, but she is the only one that doesn't show fear. The others stay back and keep a hand on their guns.

She usually smiles, but not today. Today she looks grimm

“Hello Nathan. I am sorry to do this but I have no choice. You didn’t come to the hearing of the case against you. Why didn’t you come?” She asks with true concern. She might had trained me in camp, she might have seen my softer side, but that dosn’t mean she knows me. 

“Why would I?”

“To defend against the charges”

I aske again. This time bit more clenched. “Why would i?”

“Are you daft?!” One of the girls yell. I take a deep breath. In my head I have already through my knife at her. But I calm myself and ignore her. She looks young to young to know what she just did.

“Why didn’t you come Nathan?” Greatorex askes calmly. Motherly even.

“I didn’t see the point in going.”

“Why?”

“Because what they say is the truth. I did beat him up.”

“Yeah after the lad went stomping on Loverboys grave.” Nesbitt defended “Greatorex you know Nathan, it’s like poking a bear. It's on the Ben fella that he went looking for trouble.”

“It doesn't matter, we have to follow produce, all of us needs to abide the laws that protect all. Especially this close after the change.” She doesn't say the war, witch is strange. She never were one to avoid things.

“How bad is it?” I ask 

“They want you imprisoned for 3 months, they want to set an example that even war heros don't get a free pass.”

“What are they gonna do if I refuse?” I ask.

Greatorex laughs a hollow laugh at that.  
“It’s not that you aren’t powerful enough to get away.” She looks at me.  
“But do you want to go on the run, to be hunted again? And what of your son? What would he think if his father was a outlaw? What of Arran, would he want never to see you again?” 

“He doesn't mind his mother being a murderer then how can I being on the run be any different?”

“If you come with us it's a sign of good faith and they might reduce your sentence.”

“No”

“But…”

“No, I am not going back to a cage.” I panic and grab the Fairborn with my free hand, ready to pull it out. “I am not going anywhere, I'm not leaving Gabriel. I can't.”

“You should go, Nathan.” I turn my head and see him standing behind me.  
“You should go, then they would leave you alone after.” I look at his expression, his normally so soft and tender eyes are hard with anger, but they dont look at me, they look at Greatorex and the other hunters.   
He knows how I feel being indoor, he knows how much I hate being in cage.  
He trusts them, no he doesn't trust them, not the counsel. But he dos trust Greatorex. I glance at Celia, look were trust got her. 

“Fine I’ll go.” I don't look at Greatorex as I speak I keep looking at Gabriel. Because I trust him. He is the only one I will follow against my instincts. If this trust sends me to my grave then we will be together again. 

“But it will be torture you know that, Greatorex. If they lock me in at night I will go mad just like my grandmother Sabba.”

I feel some of the hunters stiffen at that. They must know the story learnt from it in School. It makes me laugh, don't know why. Maybe it's because they flince of a dead witches name. A dead witch that is less powerful than me. They truly don't know how powerful I am, because if they knew they would all be running away screaming. I laugh some more, it is that type of laughs only mad people make.

I look at Gabriel and think I might be a loon.

“I know Nathan that is why I have convinced the Council that they would consider reducering your sentence if you came willingly.”

“I only have one request. I want the accuser to see it. So they know that they condemned me to torture.”

“I'm sure I can arrange that.”

“When do we leave?”

“Now” she says 

I release the fairborn and put Gabriels knife in its sheath. I unbuckle my belt and hand it over to Nesbitt. “Watch those for me will you?”

He takes them without a word he looks his as grimm as Gabriel.

“I’ll come back.”

“I know. You always do.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. I don't feel his lips the same way I feel Greatorex’ hands putting restraints on my hands behind my back.  
Her hands are solid while his lips are soft. Like the wind flowing, they are there, but not really. His touch is that of a memory. 

“Come on” Greatorex leads me by the arm. I don't look to where I am going, I just back, look at Gabriel. And I know I’m doing this for him, I will take the pain so I can get back to him. And so we can live in peace.

————{~$~}—————

They don't put me in the tower, but take me to an underground facility. It looks like a bunker.  
We drove all the way here. I don't know where we are exactly, it doesn't matter. all that matters is getting time to fly so I can get out and back to Gabriel.

My head is killing me before I even got into the bunker. All the hissing from phones and technology. It makes me jittery.

They put me in my cell.

And in there it is quiet. It is still day, I feel fine. But I’m tired and I’m scared. I know the pain will be excruciating because of the moon. It will be full in tree days.

They leave me for what feels like days, but when evening comes Greatorex brings food.

I don't eat, I know I will throw it back up.  
She takes her dinner with me, she trying to start a conversation, but I don't talk back. I wait to she is done with her meal to ask her:

“Who reported it to the hunters?” I know the answer it was either Annalise or Ben.

“Annalise, but Ben are coming to.” They are being escorted here as we speak.

“How did you defend that to the counsel?”

“I said that you didn’t harm anly hunters and followed with me in exchange for a meeting with them. And I might have mentioned that you easily could have escaped me or have killed all of us if you didn’t want to collaborate” she smiles and I smile back.

“I am the most powerful and deadly Black witch of the century.”

“They fear you just as much, if not more than they did Marcus. So they let you have what you wanted.”

“What about making a exempel out of me?”

“Well, the public doesn't know about how easily the consel rolled over.” She winks at me.

I don't know if I should be angry or not. Because this counsel is no different than the old one. They want to use me, too. It might be politically, but somehow that is worse than just wanting to use me for my skill set. That was straightforward, no hidden agendas.

I hear the footsteps outside door before someone knock on it.

“Come in.” Greatorex says with her voice slightly raised.

“They here.”

“Good.” She pauses. “Do you want chains?” She's looking at me. She must be asking me.

Do I want chains? No but it might stop me from accidently lashing out, it might protect them from me.

“No. But bring them anyway. I don't know what I might do.”

“Daysi bring the magic chains.”

“Yes.” She nods her head and leaves the room. It doesn't take long for her to comeback with small thin chain. My face must have asked the question on my mind.

“How are they gonna hold you?” Greatorex says. “They stop the flow of your gift. It was designed specifically to you.”

“Hey don't look at me like that! We didn’t make it. Soul worked on it, it was made the same time as the Blue Smoke.”

I remember that, the feeling of feeling good of being drugged. Suddenly I don't want that chain near me. 

She asks me to sit on the bed as she put the manicals on my wrists. I am suddenly really scared. I’m sure she knows it too. 

“Chaining you up reminds me of the nordic myth of fenrir and the Magic chain. Fenrir was a wolf too, you know. He was profited to start the end of the World.”

“Promise me, if I die in here you will bury me beside Gabriel?”

“Nathan you are not gonna die here. I’ll make sure of that.” She looks me into my eyes and for the first time I don't see the light that turns in her eyes. I panic because I’m missing something.

“He's not there, what's happening!”

“Trust me it's going to be okay.”

“Get me out of these!” I fight them but it's no use.

I feel alone. I feel empty like a asteroid in space drifting aimlessly. I feel like flying. I don't feel the earth and it scares me. It has been the only constant in my life. 

Suddenly I feel dizzy, have to lie down and even when I lie down the earth still spins. I through up as tree figures come into the room.

“Is it night?” I ask Greatorex in between me being sick.

“Yes.” She answers with a small nod. I look back at her eyes. They are dull like that of a fains. And I know how other people must see one another others eyes.

She has a look of compassion.

“What are we doing here, with him?!” Ben says angely.

“You are here to witness his punishment.” She looks away from me. “The justis” she spids with venom.  
It is clear that she doesn't agree with the counsel. 

“Good” Ben says. 

“Do you want me to stay?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Get out.” I roar.

And she dos, they all do. I don't know why wanted them here, why I wanted them to see me suffer. I know I am not weak. I know, no pleading or screaming will make it stop but it doesn't stop me from doing it. I scream and I beg for it to stop, but it doesn't it just keeps going.

The walls are falling down, falling in, collapsing inward. 

When I wake again I don't know how long I have been gone. 

I lie shaking on the bed when they come for me. Annalise is the first that comes ind. It's funny. I don't see her from the bed were my body is.

I stand in the corner and watch myself. I have never had an experience like this before, I have never been outside my body before. The only time its been remotely like this was when we restored Gabriels powers to him. But then I felt the Earth, I felt my animal connecting me to it. But here I just feel like floating and I don't like it. I don't know what it means or why. I just don't like it. 

Annalise has a bowl of water and a rag with her, she washeses the sick of my face. I don't feel it, but I see it from the corner where I’m standing.  
Not a moment goes by before Ben is running through the door.

“What are you doing!” He demands. She just glances at him before definitely going back to her tarsk. Vipning my pathetic shaking body that is starting into empty space. 

“I never knew it would be this bad.” She speaks so low.

“What are you talking about?” Ben asks.

“The screaming, that kept everyone up in the last night. It was him.” Her fingers are gentle, I remember how much I once wanted her. And with remembering the want, I remember how much my hatred wanted to rip her apart. The hand in my hair is the same hand that took my father's life. I'm not angry, I'm strangely empty for feelings. But I remember them as if they were something from a film.

“Why do you care?”

“I once loved him, Ben. In some ways I still do.” The silence is thick “Everytime I look at Edge I see Nathan. I see him in the drawings, in his stuppernsess in his silence. They are so alike” she supps “How can I love Edge without loving some part of Nathan?”

“This have to stop, we need to stop this. It's killing him Ben, we are killing him.”

His look softens. “I will go and try to do something about it.”

She stays a little longer. It must be day, since I'm not screaming. I walk out of the door with Ben. My spiritual self dos anyway. Suddenly I'm not at the compound, I’m floating in literal space. I see the stars floating around me I feel them singing, but I hear no sound. I feel the energy it feels similar to essence of the earth. It's harder, stronger. Not as kind. I feel it, it pulls at me. I try to stay but the pull is too strong. 

When I wake, I know something important has happened. I don't know what. But I feel different. Something in me shifted when I drifted in between the stars, but I don't remember what it is.  
The first thing I remember is the chain is not of me and seeing someone lying on the floor who had her head in an unnatural position. Her neck was snapped. I try not to let her corpse get to me.  
I recognize her she was my first kill, then she moves. Witch is impossible. She speaks but sounds too far away to hear her probably. But it's not the distance between my body and hers, It’s something else.

I see a movement in the corner of my eye. Another hunter I don't recognize her. They start filling the room, more and more shows up. In between them I recognize Mecary, I see Kiron.

They are all the people I have killed. I start to shake. It is not possible. The chain should stop the magic, but it doesn't.

Their whispering is to much. I scream as I rock back and forth in a corner. I keep screaming. It deathens them. If I close my eyes I can’t see them, I can't hear them. It's almost like they are not there.

That is until one voice is as clear as day.

“Pathetic.” I know her, she was my sister. “What a Black witch you are” 

I open my eyes and i focus on her voice and as i do the whispers stop. The other shadows disappear. She is the only one standing left. Jessica. 

“You are as pathetic as always.” she taunts.

“Leave me alone.” And suddenly she is gone.


	7. Chapter 7

I must be broken, I’m being torn apart. I know it as clearly as I know the Colour of the sky. 

I feel myself being ripped to pieces and mended over and over. It keeps going so long that I lose all sense of time. All I know is that it only gets worse before it gets manageable.

When I come to, I feel different. I feel good. I feel neforick and high. I feel like being in two places at once.  
Drifting in the universe and buried in the ground.

Somehow I know the chain is off, I look for it and it lies in crumbles on the floor.

I gather myself in my body and I rise from the bed.

I walk to the door and as I take the handle it opens by it self. On the other side is Gabriel. He smiles at me and I grib him in a tight hug.  
He is somehow more solid than before. I can smell him in the air. I taste him. His body is warm against mine.  
Even if he is still a memory, the memory of him has become stronger, pulling him to me.  
He kisses my chick “I need to go back, I can only stay for as long as this moment lasts.” he pulls me close. I wish for hvis moment to freeze and it dos. I stop time. Gabriel is with me here, were I stopped time. I feel his heartbeat, I hear his breath, I smell his sweat.  
“You have to let me go, Nathan”  
“You want me to leave you!?”  
“No, I need you to wake up and get out of here!”  
As I blink he is gone, it is af he was never here. I am weak, I can barely walk.   
I grab the walls for support.  
I don't trough up, even when my insider turn. Because I know if I start I will never get out of here.  
I know this is night, because of the walls are falling in on me. I know the moon is full, I don't know how I know, I just doo.   
It doesn't take long for me to reach the outer door of the compound. The two hunters there standing guard is shocked to say the least.   
The turn their guns at me, but I don't care, I just slide down in the doorway and breath the cool night air in.

I watch the moon as the hunters called Gatorix.  
I have never quite seen it like this before. It seems to sing. I feel it, I feel the light shining on me giving me power.  
Filling me with energi. It makes my ears roar like a waterfall. I get too much power to fast and I slide down so I lie in the doorway. My upper body is out, so I feel the earth under me as I watch the stars.  
My dizziness takes off after a while and I see Gatorix sit beside me. She has to fingers to my throat checking my pulse.

Im drifting of and I don't know if its a dream or a memory, but it have fog like feeling to it like a vision, but it doesn't make sense.  
Because Gabriel is there and he looks older. He has a little brown haired girl on his hip.  
She looks like him, with olive skin and his perfect smile. But her eyes, here eyes are dark, not brown like his, they are like my father's eyes. Like my eyes. It doesn't make sense.  
A boy comes over the ridges of the hill, he definitely looks like me. But he has blue eyes, white witch eyes. I recognize him, It’s Edge.   
Celia follows the boy, having trouble to keep up, she is old. Her hair have gone white. She leans on her cane.

I wake up with a start.

“Am I dead?” I ask with no wit. I still feel like shit.  
“No not yet. Can you get up”  
“Yes” but that is a lie, because I don't know. 

Eventually I get up.  
“Can I stay out here to the sun goes up?” Gatorix looks me over more than once.

“What happened?”

“I don't know, how much time have passed since I arrived?”

“Tree days” I look to the moon in the horizon, the sky has started to lighten it must have been my first night ever indoor at the full moon since before the scars on my back.

“Do I need to go back there?”

“I'm afraid so, but let's not do another full moon like this, Yeah? You look like shit.”

I know if I try to be inside another full moon I will die. I will be torn apart and that scares me shitless.

I sit propped up against the wall for a long time before I can get on my feet. 

————{~$~}—————

When we get back to my cell and they find the chain broken on the floor. The hunters freeze. Even Gatorix.

“How did you do that?”

“I don't fucking know, I have barely been conscious enough to register anything but pain.” I don't know why I am suddenly explosively angry.

I’m finely aware of him, my animal, and he is ready to kill them all for putting us in this cage.

“I can't do this anymore.” I say with panic and anger. “Don't try to force me, I’m not sure of what I will do to you if you force.”

“I’ll figure something out. Nathan trust me.”

I don't trust her. But with the chain in crumpets I can escape when I see fit. So I let her leave.

A nameless hunter comes in with breakfast and a drawing kit. I’m so hungry that I swallow the food without tasting it.

I don't want to sleep even though I'm tired, I'm still too worked up to find peace. So I sit and I draw. I have never had color pencils like this before, they are rich and potent with pigment. I sit and I draw a family, my family.

————{~$~}—————

Three weeks go by, nights filled nightsmoke and drawing. I even asked for a book. I don't read it, just look through it. Feel the paper, smell the glue.  
It reminds me of Gabriel. Of how he looks reading.

I like my solitude in the dark hours. I want to be alone. But I never feel truly alone. That is why I have taken to sleeping in the day. The feeling of someone else being here with me is smaller.  
Ben and Annalise went home after first few days.  
I think they might have helped in spreading my release up. I don't know and I don't care to find out.

At the start I was counting the minutes to pass. But I know it doesn't work, it never works. The trick is not to mind, not to mind the time. Not to mind the hunters and not mind the walls, that I let keep me here.

But the trick doesn't work. I mind not keeping my promise to Gabriel, I mind the time going slow. I mind the stupid hunters. I mind my cell.

When I get frustrated I do push-ups, I do sit ups and I punch the walls enough to leave a permanent blood stain on it.

After a rather frustrated day one of the hunters came with two mats. She was a years younger than me. I hadn’t really noticed her before that day. I knew she had been one of the few beside Gatorix to bring me my meals. But not minding the hunters meens not minding them.

But seeing her with two mats blew me off not minding her. And after taking a good look at her I saw something very strange, she was like me.  
She too had her code brandet into her b 0.5 into her neck. And her eyes were dark blue, the color of the midnight summer sky. With no bright triangles. With no white witch eyes. She was black like me. And that was the part about here that threw me of not minding her. 

“Here” she gave me the mat. I don't know what she wants me to do with it.  
She clearly is irritated that I'm too dumb to figure out what she wants me to do with it.

“Roll it out and sit on it” she says as she does it.

To no surprise I dont. I just stand there looking at her.  
“Why?” I aske.  
“Because I'm tired of you pounding the walls when I'm trying to sleep, you are gonna get your anger out in another way.”

“How am I supposed to do that when I'm confined to this room ?”

“By meditating and doing yoga.”

“Why?”

“Because you keep us all up, first with your screaming then with your wall pounding and I'm afraid that I will want to kill you just to get one night of peace and quiet.”

“You could try.” I say and grin. She speaks the same language as me. I suddenly feel at ease with her. 

“You look like you get enough sleep.” And she dos, she's not bruised under her eyes. She's actually really pretty to look at. 

I roll out the mat and sit across her. I copy her movements. I'm surprised how hard and how painful it is. But after a while I feel more relaxed. My mind feels heavy when we lie doing breathing exercises.

It doesn't take long before I'm lingering on the edge.  
Half awake, half asleep. I feel her on her mat, but I also feel another presences, it is in me, but not me. I look for it with my mind. As I find it I fully wake with adrenaline pounding in my body.

I think I know what I found. I found my father. I don't understand it. Maybe it’s because I ate his heart, but I don’t know. All those new things that are happening to me it feeds stranges, but in some way til feels right. Like when I got my gift. It feels like it's meant to be a part of me, but I can't control it yet.

So I decide that I want to learn to control it and not let the change control me.

The rest of my tree moths time in the bunker I use on staying fit, drawing and meditating. The next full moon I get visitors again. Most are easy to get rid of. But those I know like, Kiron and Jessica are harder to get rid of.

Kiron goes after I tell him to fuck of, but Jessica stays. She stays all night bating me, ragging me down. But she is powerless, when she has no way to physically hurt me. I have grown use to her hatefulness. So I basically just ignore her. It drives her mad and gives me great sadecefation.

The rest of my time fly by and before I know it I’m being released. I feel restless to get back, back to Gabriel, back to the stream and back to the denn. Back to my home.

Arren comes and picks me up. It was nice to see him again. He drove me back to the Celia's cabin. He didn't need to do it, I could have made a cut of just flown home as a bird.  
I'm not on edge like I use to be, witch is new. I am always on edge always ready to fight. But sitting in Arrans car looking out the window makes me feel relaxed. I see my surroundings and more of all I feel them. I feel every life that we pass. I even feel Arran. He is unsure but happy. He’s probably unnerved by my radical change. I feel calm, don't get me wrong I still have a lot of anger deep within me. But that full moon, that night changed inside something me. 

I don't know if it's for better or worse. But I like feeling relaxed instead of angry all the time. 

It takes hours to get back, but we talk and we stop for a burger and fries. 

And sitting beside my brother I feel little again. I feel like I use to when we sat watching old movies. Suddenly I miss him. I miss Gran and Debra, but most of all I long for someone to take my hand and love me. I miss Gabriel. I stop my thoughts because thinking of him here, is no good.

But as I finish the thought he sids across for me. He is smiling. He is perfectly beautiful. He looks so real sitting there, that I don't dare talk to him in fear of Arran losing his mind altogether.


	8. Chapter 8

Spring comes and goes. In the summer a letter comes from Annalise, she says Edge keeps asking for me and wants me to come visit. I want to see him. I have been thinking of him, more than ever before. He is my son after all. But I know he is safer away from me. He is safer if no one knew he was my son.

I get Gabriel to help me write her back.  
I write that; it is still to dangerous for him to be around me. I don't write much, but I make him a book full of drawings of people I know, knew. Of my family, my mother, father, my sisters. I even draw Annalise’s brothers.  
The only one I can’t qied draw is myself, so I don't. 

-————{~$~}—————-

Gabriel and I have a nice and quiet summer together we run, fish, bath and just lay around looking at the sky.  
I wish he was the one I had a child with. And I remember the vision with the little girl on his hip.   
I asked him.

“Did you ever want children.”

He looks at me like I'm a nutter. Shocked that I asked him. He is still 19 and I’m 24, but the vision nags me.  
He would be a good parent, better than I would ever be.  
Gabriel is so kind and compassionate it is easy to imagine him with a child in his lap reading out loud in ridiculous voices.

It it all to real, and that makes me sad. That we could never have that. We are never gonna sleep in late in each others arms getten jumped on by small feet. We will never be bound by blood. 

I look at him again and he smiles at me.

“Only with you.” He says as he brushes his fingers through my hair. I just barely feel them. But they are there and that is all that matters.  
Gabriel is all that matters. Because he is my world, the air I breathe. If I never met him. No, don't think that.

The trick is to stay in the present, get lost in the detail of him and enjoy the time we have together.

I close my eyes and concentrate on his fingers in my hair. I listen after his breath. I hear him. With my eyes still closed I sniff in deeply, his scent is faint. But I cling to it. Cling to him like a drowning man. 

But even a drowning man grows tired. I fall asleep here in the grass. And when I wake again he is gone. Even if he is gone, I know he will be back. But waiting like this is more than I can take. So I shift and I run. Times goes by faster when I don't think to much, when I just let the animal take control for a bit. 

-————{~$~}—————-

Gabriel has been reading me a book this winter. I don't remember the name of the book or what it is about. We lie in the denn close enough to touch. But we don't. We have never been closer or more at peace together. 

“ You know, you don't have to be alone” he stops reading and looks at me funny like he has absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

I pull out the fairborn, I am met with my reflection in of the Black edge. 

I look back at him as I repeat myself.  
“You don't have to be alone.”

His face changes from confused to horrified to angry in a second. 

“Nathan” the way he says it, says my name is more than a thousand words, more than any argument. So I put the knife away.

“Okay” but it pains me to not do it, it pains me so horribly not to be with him. But I can take the pain a little more, I make myself bare it. Because I couldn’t bare the look of disappointment or disgust that would come over Gabriels face if I did it against his will.  
I can bare the pain a little bit longer just for him. 

What choice do I have? I’m half alive and half dead. I walk among both.

My new gift has become stronger. Which means that Gabriels stays longer and when he goes away he comes back quick.

I don't use it to call the other to me, I’m scared if I do I won’t know who is dead and who is alive. My grip on reality has been slippery, but I do anything in my power to say sain.

I don't tell anyone about the dead that walks with me, no one. Not even Gabriel.

-————{~$~}—————-

It’s christmas day when I visit the cabin with a dead canadian goose under my arm. We had a rather pleasant sky dance earlier today. I smile when walking in the door. I see the cooking has already been started. 

“Nesbitt I got your christmas goose, it’s still warm.”

“Good God, boy. How do you do that?”

“What?”

“At least when you are around us put on some clothes.” I look down, I’m naked. Ups, I must have been to eager to show of my catch “I know loverboy doesn't mind.”

“Piss off” I sneer at him. I catch the trousers Celia thoughts me. They have taken to have a pair of clothes here for me. I don't really need them. I never get cold anymore not even as a human.  
I feel the fabric.

“You still ion your stupid trousers, here in the middle of nowhere?!”

“Old habits die hard.” She just shrugged.

“How can you not be bothered by him walsing into our home like that, in his birthday suit?” The question is directed to Celia.

“Well I have been looking at his junk from before he got pupic hair.”

“Did you look every time I pissed into the vegetable garden?”

“I always had half an eye on you. If I hadn’t, you would have slipped my fingers. He was quite the teen” she turned to Nesbitt “So provoking, everything you did was in defiance. It made me want to smack you around just a bit more.”

“So your saying if I had been a good docile boy I wouldn't have been smacked around like I was?!” I sound wonderstruck.

“No, you probably wouldn’t, I had to keep you in line. The only thing you're stupid brain understood was violence and even then you pushed to find the edge so you could jump over it, just to fuck with me. Not that it worked. I was always one step ahead.”

“I hated you for it.” I laugh and trough myself into the comfortable couch. It doesn't take long for me to fall asleep. Listening to Celia read to Nesbitt as he worked in the small kitchen.  
It is the first real Christmas I’m gonna had since Gran died.  
I wonder what would have happened if my mother hadn’t loved Marcus. I think of how the Bryn family could have been happy. I dream of a Jessica that isn’t a total bitch. I dream of Debra, how her kids would look playing with Arrans little girl.

I wake to the smell of smoke, strawberries cigarettes and nightsmoke. I fumble from the couch. Through the blanket Nesbitt or Celia must have put over me. Nesbitt sits in the chair with a lit cigarette not smoking it.

“I sometimes light one in her memory.”

“If your not gonna smoke it give it here.” He gives me the cigarette and I close my eyes as I take a hit.  
It dos remind me of Van. Of her kindness. She was a wonder, an anomaly of the people in my life. One of the only people that were honest, kind and expected nothing in return.  
I smile as i remember her in one of her mens suite. I see her clear in my mind. 

“I could really need a drag of that.” 

“I didn’t know you have taken op smoking Celia” I laugh.

“Nathan, are you okay?” Nesbitt sounds worried. I open my eyes and behind him…  
I freeze, she smiles. I am not scared, not like the first time I saw someone else than Gabriel.

“Nathan what is happening?!” I don't hear him, the only thing I see is her standing behind the chair leaning on it. 

“I didn’t kill you.” I whisper. “How? I didn’t kill you ” I repeat.

“Tell me something I don't already know”

“Then how can I see you.”

“I don't know.” she looks annoyed and puzzled.

“Celia!” Nesbitt stands in the door screaming for her to come quick.

“ I don't know Nathan. But I have an ideer. Can you pick that up and take another drag? I miss the taste and the smell.” She gestures to cigarette that has fallen out of my hand. I Pick it up and do as she asks. She sits in the chair where Nesbitt had been sitting.

“How are you Nathan?” She crooks her head. “You look so much stronger than last I saw you.”

“Your not here all the time?”

“No? What do you mean by that?” I think of my answer, but before I get to speak, her sharp mind has already drawn a conclusion.

“I'm not the first you have seen?”

“No.”

“Who?”

“Gabriel”

“I should have thought so. You two were inseparable.” Val smiles with sadness in her gaze. 

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

“When did he… leave you?”

“He never left.”

“That is peculiar, you never seen others beside Gabriel before me?”

“Yes”

“Who are you talking to lad?!” Nesbitt is freaking out. Celia is by his side both standing in the doorway. Celia gives Nesbitt a gun and keep one herself. Gatorix stands behind them. looking at me with horror and fascination.

“Van is here.” I keep my eyes on her to make sure she doesn't disappear. 

“What are you on about lad?!” Nesbitt is losing it, I hear it in his voice.

“Van is here.” I talk slowly to make sure he hears and understands the words.

“What!?” Nesbitt is looking around the room. 

“Why are you here?” I ask Van. 

“I’m not ”

“Iˋm not that stupid. I know that. But why not stay on the other side?”

“There is no other side” she says with doubt. “Is there?”

“There is.” I know, there must be. Because otherwise I think I would have seen a lot more dead people before now.  
I got the ability to call back the dead or atleast summon them in some way. I don't know how it works. And to be honest I don't really care to learn it. For what can it help? It would make me stuck in the past. That power would drive me mad. More than is already has.

“Are you okay Nathan” Gatorix says

“I'm fine. It's nothing that hasn't happened before.”

“You see dead people?” Now all attention is on Gatorix.  
“You didn’t know? Nathan has been seeing Gabriel since he died.”

“What?!” 

“Thought you knew since you have been looking after him for over 3 months”


	9. Chapter 9

“does he see a lot of dead people?” Ledger askes Celia.

“Not that I know of” they must have sent for Ledger to come. Since I wouldn’t leave Gabriel. Not again, never again. I hear them talk at the fire pit. They don't know I’m here. 

I keep walking to where the cabin is. To where they sit. I have a fesan with me.  
I give it to Celia. She leaves, I think she knows I don't want her here. Not for this. 

“I dont see alot of dead people.”

“But you see Gabriel most?”

“Eye”

“Who else?” Ledger askes. 

“Mostly Jessica, but others I have killed. They come to me.”

“Can you call on them?” He asks. 

“I don't know.” The truth is I haven’t tried. “I don't want to try.”

“Remarkable.” Fledger would be the only person to say that, he be the only one who was interested in knowing and learning just for the sake of knowing.

“Has anyone else seen those you see?”

“No.” I answer, but them I remember my son Edge, he too saw Gabriel. And I tell Ledger.

“Remarkable” he says under his breath again. “I have never met anyone as gifted af you Nathan. Are you sure you haven’t widend your flow to the essensen?”

“I don't know, not on purpurs.”

“When did it start?”

“I have always been able to see Gabriel. But the others came after I was imprisoned for three months.”

“Even at full moon.”

“Yes” Ledger looks horrified “the chained me op with a special chain. It was supposed to stop my gifts. It did. It stopped my connection to the earth.”

“What happened to that chain?”

“I broke it, I don't know how. I was mostly out of it. It drove me mad. At some point I thought of not returning to my body.”

“You left your body?!” 

“Yeah?”

“More than once?”

“What does it have to do with anything?!” Im frustrated 

“To use the essence of the earth you have to be grounded. But leaving your body, you use the energy of the universe. I have only heard of few witches that could to that. Is is called spirit-warking. It’s an ancient technique that has been lost through the ages. I have only heard of black witches that could do it. Tried it myself without luck.”

We just look at each other for a moment, sizing one another up. It's like he sees me with different eyes. With a new curiosity, respect and something I have never seen in his eyes, fear. And that has me thought of, because Fledger don't fear, don't care for anything else but learning, the balance and the essens.   
This has nothing to do with learning or the essensen. That much I know, because the balance of the world was the only thing that made him help us in the alliance.  
If he is scared of what I might do with this power, maybe I should be too. Or at least more conscious of what I can do with it.

Suddenly I want to know more. I want to learn. I want to be able to control this thing. But I don't want Ledger to know about it.

He is afraid of what I will do with this gift. 

It makes me smile with glee.

-————{~$~}—————-

Spring came fast this year, Gabriel and I have been talking of seeing Edge again.

Gabriel thinks I should go, he says that I need to see him. That I should be happy for the family I have left. I should see them and be with them, too.

But I am to busy trying to work this new gift out. The key word is trying.

I get nowhere with it. 

Gabriel pester me with seeing my family. He says that he will come with. And when I still tell him no, he threaten go go see them himself.

But I don't want things to changes, I am content here in my cage. 

Gabriel convince me to go. I make a cut, and of we go. 

We visit them at their home. I don’t nock or do anything I just watch them.

I follow Annaliese when she delivers Edge at preschool. I don't want her to see me, I stay invisible until she has gone. 

I stand at the fence looking at the children play, looking at Edge. There are a lot of fain children. But there are also whites, no blacks.  
I don't know how I feel about that. Edge is half black, he should be around blacks too.

But then I look at him and I realise that he is just like the other children here, he is happy and he is white. He belongs here.

Edge has friends, lots of them it's clear to see. Some weird tug in my chest makes me smile.

Gabriel puts his hand over mine on the fence. I don't know what to make of it, but it is nice. 

“Look at him, this could be your life. You could be happy with him.”

One of the grown ups spot me, she looks alert. She comes over with at stern face. When she gets close enough for me to see her eyes, I recognize her to be a fain.

“If you don't leave, I have to call the police.”

“The police?” I don't understand. “Why?”

“You are not a parent or staff, that means you are not allowed here for safety reasons.”

I don’t get her. Gabriel laughs beside me, I look to him for an answer. 

“She thinks you are a pedofile. ” I can't help but laugh, too. Because that is absurd, I may have killed and hurt people. But never indecent kids, not with what I went through. 

“I’m calling the Police now.” Her voice was high pitched and nervus. It made one of the other caregivers come over. 

“Are you okay, Stacy?” She asked the fain, before looking at me. 

“He won't leave.” She turns and looks at me. Her eyes are like liquid, a halfblood. She freezes when she looks at me. It must be my eyes and the tattoos that she recognizes. 

“Get out of here, your kind don’t belong here.” She is right, my kind don’t belong here. 

“You do belong. Look at him.” Gabriel says.

I look back at Edge. I could fight for my son, show him I love him or I could do what my father did to me. Protect him by letting him be. I look back at Gabriel and decides that maybe this fight is something I should fight for.

“My kind?” I ask the half blood.

“Blacks” she answers, which has the fain confused.

“I’m not Black” i say before pulling down my shirt at the neck showing her the tattoo.  
“I’m a half-code. Which means I’m allowed to be here.” It has her stunned. Because I am allowed to be here in the city by her logic.  
“You still can't hang around the playground.” She tries again.  
“But I can, I’m a patent.” The words are so forrin in my mouth that i don't believe that I say them.

“What child?” The fain askes. Looking more awkward then scared.

“Edge.”

“You must be ben then.” I laugh at that.

“No, ben is Annalise's husband, I’m Nathan Edge.” The fain takes it in like it just everyday information, she nods at turn to a child that now is crying somewhere away from here. However the half blood was another case, she stood frozen in fear. 

“Won't stay long” I tell her. “I just rarely see the kid.” I look back at Edge for another moment and regret, my words. I should just have left them be, now they know whose blood runs through his veins. Now they will have him and hurt him like they did me.   
I turn and walk away. Angry at Gabriel for making me go, for convincing me to hurt my son. I leave both of them there and I run.  
Run back to the cut and back to whales. Back to the cage that I have learned to love.


	10. Chapter 10

The moon is red and big, bigger than ever before.  
I feel the power it brings me. It sets me on edge. It's like a veil has been lifted. Like everything I see is so much clearer, more full of colour, even in the darkness of the night.   
The moon is a mystery tonight, it doesn't fit, it shouldn’t be full. Normally each month has is own full moon, but this red oversized orb is the second full moon this month. 

Gran taught me about this phenomenon, when I had been small, it's called a blue moon. It happens rarely, witch explain the saying; once in a blue moon.  
Why it is named that, I have no clue, because it isn’t blue, not even normally. It is just white, but bigger than any other full moon. Gran said it was because the moon came closer to the earth, though to me it never really made sense to me. Why would the moon sometimes be close enough that you could reach your hand out and touch it and otherimes be so far that it only took my littlefinger to cover it in the sky.   
I have only seen one after I was taken from home, seen it from my cage in Scotland. I had felt its power then, known that underneath such a moon my whole being would be bussing like crazy. 

It did that now, too. My whole being was vibrating with an energi power waiting to be released. After my giving, it had only been worse, much more power filled me. It makes everything tingle and itch. 

I hear a singing in my head, similar to what the fairborn feels like in my hand. But this is different. Where the fairborn eats life and wants to kill, this wants to live. I have never heard it before.  
I go and follow it to where it is strongest. I end up someplace special. I end up on the hill where I buried Gabriel. 

Before I know what I'm doing, I dig to find the reason of the sound. I drives me mad. Just like the sound of electricity it sets my teeth on edge. All I want, is for it to stop, so I dig like a mad person. Breaking nails and skinning my bare hands on the tight packed earth littered with stones. When I reach deep enough, I find him, he is nothing but bones.

“Nathan?” He asks as he stands obow me on the edge of the hole I dug. The grave that has been unearthed.

Then I see the ring, my father's ring, Gabriel's ring it is glowing bright red in the shine of the blood moon. 

I remember what Van said all those years ago. We would use something darker than blood, we would use my soul to get Gabriels power back. that we would be bound together for it to work.

I look back up at Gabriel and I know, I just know. I have to set him free. 

I take Gabriel's hand. It is nothing like it used to be. It is not soft, it is not strong, it is not gentel, all it is bony and fragil. With my other hand I stab the fairborn in my hand, in our hands, the same hands that bound us together before. 

I look back at up at the ghost I have loved for the past six years. 

“Thank you,” I thank him for everything for loving me and for staying with me.  
As my blood flows from my body and hit the ring. Something strange happens.  
I look to the ghost and see the same hand begin to turn to fog before dissolving. It doesn't take long for all of him to be gone. 

“What have you done?” His last words to me, he said with tears, panik and disgust in his eyes. He dissolves into mist. 

I look to the blooded moon and for the first time I feel like howling at it. I feel lost here with no Gabriel by my side.

I feel the earth pulsating, the vibration of it, it beats like a heart. But I also feel the Universe, filling me with energy. I feel like i'm about to explode. And I do, I can no longer hold the tears at bay, they keep pouring out as I pull the fairborn from our hands. I look at him, or what is left of him. I let my bloody hand rest on his forehead as I say a prayer. Beg of his forgiveness. The song from the ring stops singing.   
I can't take this anymore so I bury him again. This time for good, he deserves better. He deserves piece. Not being stuck with me, he has a family waiting for him on the other side.  
He needs to be free. I am as much his cage, as he is mine. I can't live without my cage, I’m to broken for that. But he can still be free, he isn't broken enough to be locked away in one. He has been a prisoner for far to long as it is.   
I don't leave the grave. Not before the red moon becomes smaller and disappears. Everything goes black. I don't want to leave, but I do, I don't want to let go, but I have to. I leave before the sky is lightning by the promise of day.

I walk away from the grave. Not knowing what I have done. Not knowing how much of a mess it would make.

-————{~$~}—————-

I look up at the noise, Celia has dropped the ion. It has started to make the carbed smoke. But she doesn't look at the ion or the pants she had been ioning. She looks out the window horrified. Blinking rapidly after a second of staring with open mouth. I dont move to pick up the ion from the floor, I couldn't care less. nothing matters right now. I just keep sitting on the couch. It is Nesbitt that comes running alerted by the smell of smoke.   
He picks it up and is about to shout at me for not getting the damned thing, when he sees the expression on Celia's face, he stops. He looks to the direction that has her stiff as a board.  
“Bloody hell mate.” He whispers when he sees it. He doesn't go still, he turns to me with horror in his eyes.  
“What did you do?!” What is it they are looking at? I rise from where i sit on the couch. All this might be worth moving from the place that has hosted me since before dawn.  
A person is staggering towards the house bathed in mud. He looks drunk, with his balance all over the place. I would know that siluet anywhere! I start running. The door nearly goes of it hinges when I pass through it. It doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is him.   
I have him in my arms before a few seconds passes by. I feel him he is real cold and wet, but real. I pull him in to smell him, a sent nearly forgotten with all the years without it. I kiss him and kiss him again, just because I can.  
He looks exactly as the last time I saw him. Still in his black hunter outfit from the day he died. The years in the earth hadn’t been good to it. It looks tattered filled of holes exposing the very much live and naked skin beneath it. I kiss him again, he tastes of dirt. Nothing of that matters because he is here. I can't help but laugh and i keep laughing, nothing will make this joy fade. As I look at him, really look at him I see disgust, fear and love.

“What have you done?” He croaked out before clinging to me. I pick him up and carry a crying Gabriel inside the cabin. He might still be taller then me but he is still young and rangely. He hasn't age one day, but I have. For the last six years I have done nothing but grow in with and muscle mass. Running and living rough will do that for you. His weight in my arms makes it real, makes me believe that I’m not mad. 

“Help me.” I tell Nesbitt.


End file.
